It was a big day for ObamaCare in the courts, as a federal judge in Texas heard oral arguments in a lawsuit that could result in the end of the law's protections for people with pre-existing conditions. More on that below... but first...

Brett Kavanaugh, the man who could ultimately hear arguments in the ObamaCare case if it reaches the Supreme Court, faced opening rounds of questions from senators in his nomination hearing.

Why it matters: Republicans had hoped the bill would get a vote in the Senate before Labor Day. McConnell then said last week it could come for a vote this week. But there are still disagreements.

Context: The House passed its opioid bill in June, and they're getting inpatient across the Capitol. Any bill that passes the Senate still has to be conferenced with the House bill before going to the president for a signature.

A judge appeared skeptical of ObamaCare supporters' arguments in court in Texas on Wednesday in a closely watched case on the future of the law.

But, bigger picture: Legal experts, including top conservative ones, highly doubt this case will ultimately succeed in higher courts. A bigger impact could be on the midterm elections, where Democrats are hammering Republicans for supporting the case and possibly taking away coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

"If necessary we're ready to go to the appellate court," a spokesperson for the California Department of Justice, which defended the health law in court, told The Hill on Wednesday, an acknowledgement that they could lose on the lower level.

What's the case about? Texas and the other GOP-led states argue that ObamaCare's individual mandate can now no longer be upheld as a tax since Congress eliminated the penalty for violating it as part of the tax law last year. The challengers argue that because the individual mandate is unconstitutional, all of the rest of ObamaCare should be struck down too.

The Trump administration has agreed in part, saying the mandate and protections for people with pre-existing conditions should be struck down because those protections are inseparable from the mandate.

A focus of the arguments Wednesday was on the question of whether the mandate could be separated from the rest of the law, or whether other provisions must be struck down with it.

O'Connor expressed skepticism that the pre-existing condition protections could be separated, saying past judges to examine the issue had found those sections inseparable.

Similar math: Aside from the politics of the House and Senate needing to pass a shell reconciliation budget, the numbers are still the same. Democrats gained an extra member when Doug Jones won the Senate race in Alabama in December, so if Murkowski and Collins did not change their votes, repeal would still be dead.

But maybe: McConnell did not explicitly rule out moving an ObamaCare repeal in the lame duck session after the election but his answer didn't indicate that he's giving it serious thought.

In a victory for abortion advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Texas law that would require the burial or cremation of any fetal remains.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra wrote in his ruling issuing the permanent injunction that the law would cause a "near catastrophic" failure of the health-care system for women of childbearing age in Texas.

Ezra, who was appointed by President Reagan, wrote in his decision that the measure "would be a violation of a woman's right to obtain a legal abortion under the law as it stands today."

What the law does: Passed in 2017, the law would have required health-care facilities to bury or cremate fetal remains -- whether they are the result of an abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth or an ectopic pregnancy -- regardless of a patients' wishes. Supporters of abortion rights argue the law is an attempt to punish women for getting abortions.

Next step: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said the state would appeal.